


You know (you're gorgeous)

by ChipsandChicken



Category: Clueless (1995)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Ficlets, Idiots in Love, Poor Josh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 19:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7697413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChipsandChicken/pseuds/ChipsandChicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of little ficlets (probably two per chapter) of small moments from each character, up until the big ending scene from the movie. Chapter 1: Josh is an idiot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You know (you're gorgeous)

_________________________

**_The Final Frontier_ **

He did  _ not _ shave because Cher teased him about it. It was a  _ complete coincidence _ : he forgot he was growing the hair out until he was halfway through shaving it the next morning. 

Although the fact that it occurred to him after that she might be the reason he shaved irritated him beyond comprehension. Even more because when he met with his friends the next day, they all met him mourning the loss and questioning his motives themselves. And her stupid grinning face kept popping aggressively into his head. 

He just told them that he’d decided he liked a clean shave better. 

 

___________________________

 

**_Degrees of Limitation_ **

It’s perfectly natural to get a slight crush on someone who sits so close to you so often. When there’s none of that nervousness, not a slight trace of insecurity with the situation, everything just gets so much more comfortable, and, by proxy, attractive. 

Especially when the someone is Cher. 

She doesn’t believe in personal space, or if she does, she doesn’t believe he needs it. When she sits next to him on the couch in the den, fighting over the remote or munching on small, stupidly healthy snacks, she’s practically on top of him every time. And there’s no agenda to it-- how could there be, when he’s her “ex stepbrother”. Anyone with the title “brother”, no matter what precedes it, is by social and natural law off limits and tension-less. He’s a fixture to her, like Mel, or the gardener. An interactive comfort of home that she rags on and practically sits on, but generally takes care of in the long run. 

The problem arises with Josh. 

Because Cher was never his stepsister. She’s never been his ex anything, just like Mel was never his father or ex father, even though the man acts more like a dad than any other husband his mother has had. Cher has always just been “Mel’s kid”. 

Which means that the taboo doesn’t quite stretch to meet her obnoxiously invasive, distractingly beautiful self. 

So it’s perfectly natural, or so Josh tells himself, that when she squashes her well-toned, sunkissed little body in between him and the armrest and immediately swipes his snacks from his lap, he gets the tummy squirms. 

It’s a proximity thing. 

_ And for Christs’ sake _ , he thinks desperately as she grins self-satisfactorily at some point she imagines she just made,  _ who would blame me? _

She did this once in her nightclothes, the one Christmas they had together as a “family”, back when Gale and Mel still made goo-goo eyes at each other over dinner and there wasn’t yet the grand looming finale of divorce on the horizon. Just tra-la-la’d down the stairs in her reindeer long sleeve sleep set and flopped down on the couch next to him, rolling her eyes at him when their respective parents shared a sloppy and foul-sounding kiss. He hadn’t known her for long yet, but she was already wedged between him and the couch arm, and he was  _ seventeen _ for Gods’ sake, how comfortable was he  _ supposed  _ to be when a girl smashed her body against his like that? He would quickly learn that wherever he sat was where Cher was going to squeeze herself too (if not more for pride than to annoy him), but back then he’d stiffened up and tried to scoot over to make more room for her. She’d just pulled a face, like he’d insulted her, and yawned widely (and shockingly unattractively, which was a look that really only Josh would get to see on her in the years to come), resting her head tiredly on his shoulder and curling up as she waited for the parents to get done sucking face and get on with the presents already.

That was when the tummy squirms started. When he first smelled her shampoo, clean and sweet, drifting from her--too young-- head as it rested on his shoulder. It was weird then. She was fourteen. Very grown up despite it, but fourteen was still fourteen. And it wasn’t like anything about her was provocative: her hair was messy, her nightclothes surprisingly frumpy and rumpled, and her eyes still half closed from sleep. But Cher was so soft, and she was just so  _ comfortable _ , throwing herself down beside a near-total stranger and just deciding,  _ eh, why not, let’s cuddle. _ It was disarming. 

Now couches felt sort of empty when she wasn’t there to fill the space, to sprawl out and hog the remaining surface area with that winning, snotty smile of hers. She still really was too young, but Josh found himself caring less and less. There was just something so cold about a couch made for two seating one. 

So he tells himself it’s natural to have a crush on that kind of confidence. That sort of generosity: to make him feel comfortable even when he wasn’t willing to try to be, to make him feel like he was, and had always been a part of their home, took a lot of giving spirit that he didn’t often see in her. Usually because he just isn’t looking the right way. So yes, of course it’s natural.    
It’s all about proximity. And toeing the line.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I'm not proud of my love for this movie. There will be a lot more of these.   
> -Chips


End file.
